Should parents of boys set aside the topic of toxic masculinity? This author thinks so
Others say rigid ideas about masculinity are so pervasive we can't afford to ignore them
Ruth Whippman was going into labour with her third son as the #MeToo reckoning was unfolding in the news.
"I was reading these tweets about how terrible men were and [about] toxic masculinity and one man after another being this, like, sex offender or predator or terrible person," Whippman told The Current host Matt Galloway.
As a feminist, Whippman said she found the #MeToo movement energizing and validating. "It was like, finally, women had a voice. We were allowed to call out this kind of bad behaviour that we all knew about and we were all aware of, but … we didn't have the social permission or the vocabulary to call it out."
"But I think as a mother of boys, I just felt very conflicted and defensive," she said. "It was like, everyone's talking about this gender as if they're the enemy and they're harmful and they're terrible. But these are my children they're talking about."
That got her wondering, she said, if instead of striving to define positive versus toxic masculinity, parents should focus on simply raising good people — regardless of gender.
Whippman explores that idea in her new book, Boy Mom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity. But others say that rigid ideas about masculinity are so pervasive in our culture they can't be ignored, and, instead, parents should aim to be part of broadening boys' horizons on what it means to be a man.
Michael Kehler, a research professor in Masculinities Studies at the University of Calgary's Werklund School of Education, is in the latter camp.
He says the #MeToo movement was an important "historical moment" that brought to light the sexual violence and harassment of women, as well as the code of silence around it.
Despite the movement's efforts, he says that violence and harassment — and the mentality of keeping quiet about it — still exists today, and ignoring it would be a mistake.
"Men and boys still participate and are complicit in misogyny and homophobia and gender-based violence," said Kehler, who has a PhD in teacher education.
But although "the landscape may not have necessarily changed," he said, "our awareness and understanding, for example, around how we raise boys, is much more sophisticated because we're able to look beyond that single or singular path of raising a boy."
Opting out of 'damaging' definitions of masculinity
If that singular path was one that suggested men should be strong, stoic and aggressive, boys and men today "have agency to opt out of the more traditional, sometimes damaging and damaged ways of being boys and men," said Kehler.
Rachel Giese, the Toronto-based author of Boys: What It Means to Become a Man, says there isn't anything inherently wrong with the terms masculine and feminine, so much as the values we associate with them. She's not sure how practical it is to leave them out of parenting altogether.
"I think for me, I'm more interested in the project of kind of querying what it means to be masculine, what it means to be feminine, than in saying we can't fix it."
But Whippman says she worries the conversation about men and masculinity "has kind of become impossible from all sides."
"We've got, on the one hand, all the old expectations of masculinity that boys sort of have always lived with. Which is, be tough, be strong, don't show your feelings, which can be quite difficult and punishing for boys. They're all still very much in circulation," she said.
"But then we have this new conversation more from the left, which is saying, 'Boys, you're toxic, you're harmful. Time to shut up and let somebody else have a turn.' "
Nathaniel Packham, a 17-year-old from Lethbridge, Alta., says he's also noticed this, particularly in online spaces.
"I've seen a lot online that there's really no place for a middle ground for a lot of young men and teenagers," said Packham. Instead, there's "different forms of toxicity."
"On, like, the more politically right side, it's just, yeah 'No emotions. Get rich. Get jacked and get tons of girls,' " he said. From voices on the other side of the political spectrum, Packham says he's noticed that "when a man does bring up his concerns of … feeling lonely or feeling like they are kind of stuck in their life, at least from the online left I see is just, 'Oh well, that's the society you created.' "
"There's not really much empathy towards anyone," he said.
Are the boys alright?
According to Whippman, there's a "micro-generation" of boys who entered puberty just as #MeToo was unfolding.
"They've had their whole adolescence played out in the shadow of this conversation, where they've been framed as inherently harmful and bad and toxic," said Whippman, suggesting that even if that's not the intention of the conversation, many boys may believe that to be the case and internalize the idea.
"I think that, psychologically, to grow up with this idea that you start off as harmful is really, really unhealthy."
I don't think it's necessarily that boys are lost. I think that relies on the premise that there's [one] roadmap to being a boy.- Michael Kehler, research professor in masculinities studies
But Michael Kheler says there have been a number of past historical moments — including in the early 2000s — when people have sounded the alarm about boys being "in crisis" or "under siege."
"I would challenge that position. I don't think it's necessarily that boys are lost," said Kehler. "I think that relies on the premise that there's [one] roadmap to being a boy."
If boys experience confusion or difficulty deciding how they want to define masculinity, he says, then it points to the importance of "our influence as parents or as teachers, as coaches … in terms of engaging boys to rethink what it means to be a boy and a man."
A shifting understanding
Ali Zaidi, 22, of Richmond Hill, Ont., says his thinking around girls and women needed some of those positive influences back when he was a preteen and young teenager.
When sexual assault allegations were coming to the light with #MeToo, Zaidi admits he was taken in when celebrities he admired would say they had been falsely accused.
"I remember in the music industry, which was like a huge influence on me, there was like a whole bunch of male artists coming out basically saying that they were victims, and they obviously weren't."
For instance, when a popular musician he liked was facing a lawsuit and allegations of misconduct, Zaidi said he would just believe his story. "Because, like, he had great music, he was good looking, he was wealthy. And I just wanted to be exactly like that."
That started to change when he took part in an after-school program run by the non-profit Next Gen Men, centred on topics like mental health, healthy relationships and gender equality.
He now works for the organization helping to run those programs, including an online community for middle and high school boys that's billed as positive, inclusive and supportive, with the goal of preventing gender-based violence.
"It was a great start to my journey of reforming my mindset about this," he said.
"The conversations about mental health, conversations about vulnerability, the conversations about privilege started to become a very normal thing."
That's the kind of progress that Kehler says indicates a shift toward a much more nuanced understanding of what it means to be a boy or a man.
"Patriarchy still exists, much as it was, but the ability to interrogate patriarchy is what's new and changing. The voices that are raising those questions are changing. Boys and men from within patriarchal systems are raising these questions themselves."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Abby Hughes